Bast fibers in a shop in Yonezawa, Yamagata prefecture. The shop was a quasi-museum, run by an ageing couple. He was prickly and she was soapy; they made me tired. A better memory was the soba shop not far away, which was famous for its sobagaki.Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated has a must-read article online today about how the Phillies are raising the bar in the National League. Among other things, he says that they are now the most-watched team, in terms of TV ratings, in the National League, trailing only the Yankees and Red Sox. You can see it at: www.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mlb/
Somewhere Jimmy Rollins must be beaming. On the other hand, I'm sure that come spring, SI will again pick the Mets to win it all and the Phillies will be, as ever, underdog picks. And that's fine with me.
